Posted on 08/29/2006 8:17:22 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
SACRAMENTO
Legislation to provide prescription drug discounts for about 5 million uninsured or underinsured Californians was approved by the Senate on Tuesday despite warnings that it wouldn't work or could harm the state's poorest residents.
The bill, the result of negotiations between the Schwarzenegger administration and Democrats, would require the state Department of Health Services to attempt to negotiate discounts with drug manufacturers.
Drug companies that refused to cut deals with the state could find it tougher to get their prescriptions used by Medi-Cal, the state's huge health care program for the poor.
The legislation comes after voters rejected two rival discount plans last year one backed by drug companies, the other by consumer groups and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed several bills that attempted to make it cheaper for Californians to get prescription medications.
Senate President Don Perata, D-Oakland, said the bill had gone through "quite a few rinse-cycles."
"It's not perfect, but it's as close as it's going to get this year," he said.
A 25-12 vote sent the bill back to the Assembly, which approved it in different form in May. Final approval there would send it to the governor's desk.
Sen. Deborah Ortiz, D-Sacramento, said she would support the bill but was concerned that the measure's potential penalties for drug companies could harm Medi-Cal recipients by denying them certain medications.
"It's not fair to use poor people as an incentive for corporations to do the right thing," she said.
But Sen. Jackie Speier, D-Hillsborough, said the state needed some kind of "hammer" to hold over drug companies.
"Nothing's going to happen without the hammer," she said.
She predicted the companies would cut deals rather than run the risk of losing part of the California market.
Sen. Dave Cox, R-Fair Oaks, called the bill an attempt to impose price caps and predicted it wouldn't work.
"Price caps haven't worked in the past, and they frankly won't work now," he said.
The bill, by Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, D-Los Angeles, would cover 5 million to 6 million Californians. That would include residents who lacked or had maxed out health insurance with prescription drug coverage and had incomes that did not exceed 300 percent of the federal poverty level.
A family of four making $60,000 a year, for example, would meet that income test.
Also eligible would be Medicare and Medi-Cal recipients with uncovered prescription costs and Californians making the state's median income or less who had unreimbursed medical expenses equal to at least 10 percent of their income.
Participants would have to pay an annual $10 fee to take part in the program.
The bill would require the department to attempt to negotiate prescription discounts that equaled one of three benchmarks: the lowest price paid by Medi-Cal for its prescriptions; 85 percent of the average manufacturer prescription price; or the lowest price given to a private health care provider.
Officials estimate those efforts would result in average discounts of 40 percent on name-brand prescriptions and 60 percent on generic drugs.
Drug companies that refused to negotiate discounts could find it tougher to get their medications used by Medi-Cal, which pays for health care for 6.8 million low-income Californians.
Those manufacturers' medications would need prior approval from the state before they could be used to fill a Medi-Cal prescription, a delay that could result in a rival companies' drug being used instead.
The prior-approval requirement would have to be approved by the federal government. It could not cost the state money nor prevent a Medi-Cal patient from receiving an existing drug regime.
On the Net:
Read the bill, SB2911, at http://www.senate.ca.gov
Ten WHOLE dollars?
Cradle to grave alive and well in Californication.
(d) This division shall apply only to prescription drugs dispensed to eligible Californians on an outpatient basis.
So much for what the people say--The legislature will tell you what you really need! Idiots!
I'm not sure how lowering drugs to the MediCal price would help Medicare recipients. They're already able to get the MediCal price upon showing their Medicare card. The author has me scratching my head with that argument.
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